City Council Makes it Harder For Non-Residents to Vote in Neighborhood Council Elections

After more than a year of feedback from neighborhood councils, the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners and city departments, the Los Angeles City Council raised the bar Wednesday for voters in neighborhood council elections.

The council voted unanimously, 12-0, in favor of an ordinance amendment proposed by Councilmember José Huizar to remove the neighborhood council’s “factual basis stakeholder” seat and replace it with a more robustly defined “community interest stakeholder.” 

The new label refers to those who have a substantial and consistent tie to the community, such as participation in a local nonprofit group, school or church.

The council's vote effectively approved changes that prevent people with merely a receipt from a local business from participating in the elections of the city's neighborhood councils. The local bodies serve as advisory panels to the city council and are allotted money to distribute to local schools and other neighborhood groups, or to fund community events such as parades and festivals.

“This is significant legislation that will help our neighborhood councils now and in the future,” Huizar said in a news statement. “With the neighborhood councils leading the way, and the support of DONE, the City Attorney and BONC, we’ve eliminated the factual basis stakeholder requirement and definition, while protecting the autonomy of our 95 neighborhood councils and promoting more robust participation through community interest voters and office seekers for those with a substantial and ongoing relationship to each specific community.”

The changes the council approved also remove a requirement to have at least one "community interest stakeholder" sit on neighborhood council boards, as long as such stakeholders can run for the "at-large" position that is open to all stakeholders.

The "factual basis stakeholder" category was meant to enable those who do not live, work or own property in a neighborhood to still have a say, but critics of the category say it is vulnerable to abuse.

City officials and community members complained that the factual basis category allowed neighborhood council elections in Eagle Rock to be "taken over" in 2012 by outside interest groups trying to sway a vote on medical marijuana.

Many of those "outside" voters only needed only to purchase something at a local coffee shop, such as Starbucks, to qualify for participation, giving rise to the nickname, "Starbucks stakeholders."

City News Service contributed to this article.